…the complicated matter of living simply.

Spray Paint Baby, One More Time

A few weeks ago, I shared my upgrade of an ugly patio set into something lovely and cheerful with a can of spray paint. Well, after I finished that project, I had just the tiniest bit of Exotic Sea paint left in the can and a plan to upgrade something else in our house. With this (from ModCloth) as my inspiration, I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t run out of paint mid-project (again):

I already owned the clock to be transformed: a wedding shower gift that we hung in our first apartment but just couldn’t find the right place for in our new home (and color scheme).

The first step was to disassemble the clock, which wasn’t as simple as I expected it to be. In case you have a clock similar to this one, you should know that the hands of the clock will come apart from the clock mechanism – so don’t freak out when they do. They’ll go back together when you’re done.

Since the surface I wanted to paint was smooth, I decided to lightly sand it with fine grit sandpaper to help the spray paint adhere a little better. I don’t think this is necessary, and I’m not even sure if it did anything, but it was a just-in-case measure that only took about 30 seconds. The scratched-up surface is completely concealed by the glossy painted finish on the final product, in case you’re wondering.

After that, I set up my spray painting station. That is, I laid a piece of newspaper on top of a pile of rocks that acted as a little pedestal for my clock, so I could get all around the sides without having to lie on the ground. Here she is after about 1.5 coats:

As in my inspiration image, I wanted the hands of the clock to match the outside, so I taped them to another piece of newspaper and sprayed them that cheerful turquoise color as well.

It took literally every drop of paint from that can, but I somehow had just enough to finish my project. I celebrated my victory, and then waited about a day for everything to dry and harden completely before reassembling it and enjoying my final product, which I think is a pretty good copycat of the spendier ModCloth version.